One of the distinctive features of Dartmouth-Rules Football, a local soccer of the mid-nineteenth century, was the fact that the kickoff was unidirectional. Although scoring was permitted on either the east or west side of the Green, the kickoff (called “the warn”) always went eastward from the spot where second base would be located during baseball season.

The rule might have been motivated by politics, courtesy, or efficiency. While there was nothing breakable in the college yard east of the Green, a row of professors’ houses stood on the west side.

The unidirectional kickoff was brought to mind recently with the news that the rules for the Illinois vs. Northwestern game at Wrigley Field had been changed to require all offensive plays to drive toward the west end zone. Although scoring was permitted in both end zones, when possession changed, the teams switched sides. Planners made this modification to reduce the number of plays taking in the east end zone, which is cramped by the baseball stadium’s right-field wall.

(Old Division Football basically evolved into the Football Rush, which can be seen at the 8:26 mark in this 1947 film. The arbitrary violence and utter lack of anything resembling game play suggest why the annual freshman-sophomore event later was turned into a tug-of-war and eventually was eliminated.)